Ex-Tulsa County Inmate Says She Was Assaulted By Employee More Than 100 Times

A former Tulsa County jail inmate says a former jail employee sexually assaulted her in her cell more than a hundred times. She was just 17 at the time.

This woman says she was not protected, but rather kept in a "blind spot" in the jail with inadequate surveillance.

The civil rights violation case against former Tulsa County Sheriff Stanley Glanz is headed to trial in federal court on Friday.

In 2010, after six months in the Tulsa County jail on charges that were later dismissed, a then-17-year-old girl reported a jail employee raped her.

In court documents, the girl says he would stand at the door to her cell "half in, half out" while forcing her to perform sexual acts.

The Tulsa County Sheriff's Office policy says youthful offenders will be under "direct supervision" to ensure their "safety and security," but both former Tulsa County Sheriff Stanley Glanz, and acting Sheriff Michelle Robinette, previously over the jail, say juvenile females did "not live in a unit where there's direct supervision."

In court documents, another jail employee working that unit says the employee would enter cells of juvenile female inmates and stay for 20 minutes, which "happened every time he worked."

Jail standards require employees never to enter a locked juvenile unit without backup, and if the employee is entering a female unit, there has to be a female employee present.

But Robinette is quoted in court documents saying, at times, that employee was the only employee assigned to the unit. Because the unit was not under direct supervision, the girl considered it a blind spot.

Glanz is quoted saying that unit was not designed as a "blind spot", because "if the double doors...are open" then a staff member sitting at a desk could see in.

But documents show the doors were normally kept closed.

Glanz's attorney, Clark Brewster, says the girl was "housed in the safest place" -- the juvenile female unit doubles as the medical unit. Brewster calls the lawsuit, filed by Attorney Dan Smolen, a “shakedown based on total lies.”

Tulsa County Sheriff's Office policy includes "zero tolerance" for inmate rape and sexual assault.

We are not identifying the woman filing the lawsuit because she claims she is a rape victim. The accused jail employee has not been charged, so we are not naming him in our report either. He resigned from the department following the accusations.

The jury trial begins on Friday.

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You can read a related story from our partner The Frontier by clicking here.

The Frontier's Ziva Branstetter looks into accusations that Robinette failed to disclose to the DOJ all the rapes and sexual assaults in the jail.